Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Fee-for-service policies and long waitlists at many Canadian mental health agencies pose significant barriers for children, adolescents, and families in need of psychological support. In Ontario, approximately 36% of parents have sought mental health services for a child, but four in ten did not receive the help they needed. One way to improve access to mental health services in Canada is to develop and deliver brief and effective psychotherapy. Our group has been studying the impact of administering the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) before therapy. Originally developed for research, the AAI is now widely used as a clinical tool, and it has been suggested that using the interview can facilitate the therapy process and improve treatment outcomes. We conducted the first study to put this hypothesis to the test and found that administering the AAI before Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) boosted treatment gains for parents and their children - unlike parents who did not receive the interview, those who did reported ongoing symptom improvement 12 months after treatment had ended. To advance our understanding of the clinical benefits of the AAI, this study will investigate how the interview leads to better outcomes; the process and mechanisms through which the AAI boosts treatment effectiveness. Two hundred and forty parents took part in an intensive 2-day EFFT intervention; about half completed an AAI before starting therapy and the other half did not. Using available video footage of therapy sessions, we will study parents' level of engagement with the EFFT process. Specifically, the level of emotional arousal experienced and the depth of emotional processing observed during therapy will be coded. It is expected that completing an AAI before therapy will lead to deeper levels of engagement during therapy, which will, in turn, lead to greater treatment outcomes. Our findings may point to a feasible way of enhancing therapy effectiveness and outcomes for families.